Tad Cook, K7RA, Seattle, reports: On April 12, new sunspot group AR2814 appeared following 5 days of no sunspots. Daily sunspot numbers on the next 4 days were 16, 16, 17, and 22, taking the average daily sunspot number for the April 8-14 reporting week from 6.4 last week to 7. The April 15 sunspot number of 22 was not included in this average. So far in 2021, 39% of the days had no sunspots.

Ge...

The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California, has acquired an archive of papers and correspondence to, from, and about wireless pioneer and Nobel laureate Guglielmo Marconi. Among the more than 200 pages of correspondence are 31 letters from Marconi to his chief engineer, Richard Vyvyan, written between 1902 and 1909, regarding the construction and success...

A 5-year, $9.3 million National Science Foundation (NSF) grant will allow the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) Geophysical Institute to establish a new research observatory at the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP). A former military facility, HAARP is now operated by UAF and is home to HAARP Amateur Radio Club’s KL7ERP. The new Subauroral Geophysical Observatory for Spa...

Researcher and innovator Ulrich Rohde, N1UL, has been awarded the Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. He was nominated by Markus Söder, president of the German state of Bavaria and member of the Bavarian Parliament.

Söder said that Rohde’s work as a scientist, university lecturer, developer and entrepreneur in the fields of radio frequency and microwave technology “has made a sign...

Radio Amateurs of Canada (RAC) has announced the “Get on the Air on World Amateur Radio Day” operating event. World Amateur Radio Day (WARD) is observed each year on April 18, to celebrate the formation of the International Amateur Radio Union(IARU) on April 18, 1925.

The object of the event is to contact as many RAC-suffix stations as possible. RAC official stations will operate across Canada...

Donald de Riggs, J88CD, on the Caribbean island of St. Vincent, says that on April 13, the 42nd anniversary of the 1979 eruption of the La Soufriere volcano, island residents were awakened to another column of volcanic ash creating a thick blanket, obscuring part of the eastern sky as the volcano continues to erupt violently.

“Almost all residents in the Red Zone have been evacuated, save for a...

The Intrepid-DX Group has teamed with DXpeditioner Ken Opskar, LA7GIA, in its quest to activate Bouvet Island, the second most-wanted DXCC entity according to Club Log. The 3Y0J DXpedition is planned for January through February 2023. A dependency of Norway, Bouvet is a sub-Antarctic island in the South Atlantic. The last Bouvet activation was 3Y0E, during a scientific expedition over the winte...

The FCC has announced that rule changes detailed in a lengthy 2019 Report and Order governing RF exposure standards go into effect on May 3, 2021. The new rules do not change existing RF exposure (RFE) limits but do require that stations in all services, including amateur radio, be evaluated against existing limits, unless they are exempted. For stations already in place, that evaluation must b...

The Volunteer Monitor (VM) Program is a joint initiative between ARRL and the FCC to enhance compliance in the Amateur Radio Service. This is the March 2021 Volunteer Monitor Program Report

The FCC delayed action on the renewal application of a General Class licensee in Quakertown, Pennsylvania, in order to review allegations of repeated transmission of obscenities and failure to properly identi...

ARISS-USA, a Maryland nonprofit corporation, has earned recognition from the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) as a Section 501(c)(3) charitable, scientific, and educational organization. ARISS-USA is the US segment of the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) international working group. With this IRS determination, donations to ARISS-USA become tax-deductible in the US, ret...

Frank Howell, K4FMH, followed up his two-part National Contest Journal (NCJ) series, “The Demographics of Contesting,” with a post to his Social Circuits blog, called “Lemmings over a Demographic Cliff?” (His original articles appeared in the July/August and September/October 2020 issues of NCJ.) Howell points to data showing that radio contesters are older than the average ARRL member. Taking...

“Team YOTA” of Youngsters on the Air in IARU Region 1 has announced it will sponsor a new contest, theYOTA Contest. Open to all radio amateurs, it takes place three times a year and runs just 12 hours. YOTA said the aim is to boost on-the-air activity by younger radio amateurs and to support YOTA. The contest will take place on different 12-hour windows on three Saturdays.

The opening event wil...

Radio amateurs are invited to take part in the MARS exercise now under way until April 10 in support of the US Department of Defense. The five USB channelized 60-meter frequencies are available for interoperability (communication between services).

By convention, Channel 1 is designated the calling channel. This convention is established to train the amateur radio community to reach out on Chann...